Thursday, June 16, 2011

Solid Foods

I am a participant in the White Out movement. I don't agree with everything Dr. Greene says, but I agree that white rice cereal is a non-nutritive food. Therefore, I decided to start differently with Ben.
In my head, I decided that I would start Ben on solids at 5 months - roughly the end of June - because I felt that we started too early with Zeke. For the past two weeks however, he has shown increasing interest in eating times and food. He grabs for everything I try to eat or drink, and he practically salivates when it's "dinnertime" and he and I watch Zeke eat.
One day I gave Ben a carrot to chew on. It was a big carrot, cold from the fridge, freshly peeled and washed. He gnawed on it happily. The next day I gave him a carrot for each hand. The next day I shared my apple with him (he sucked on it after I took bites). But this week I started with watermelon.
I cut up a watermelon into cube pieces and Zeke and I have been enjoying it, but Ben has been devouring it. I stick a piece on a fork and let him go. He grabs that fork and holds it with a vice grip, pulling it to his mouth with all the strength he's got. Then he sucks on the watermelon until he gets a chunk off. I fish it out, of course, pry the fork away from him, and get another piece to stop him from crying. He gets really offended when he thinks I'm taking away the food.
In other words, we're ready for solids. Tonight I'm getting out the high chair and tomorrow we start two weeks of butternut squash. It takes 8 positive exposures for a baby to develop a "taste" for a food. Ben is going to love squash. And I made enough to share with Zeke.

1 comment:

Tina said...

Day 6 of squash - Zeke has eaten more squash than Ben. Ben's reaction has not noticeably improved.
Thanks! to Whitney for reminding me about iron. We are starting the vitamin drops tonight!